


baths, drains and fingernails

by renhyuckmin



Series: vent works [2]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Bulimia, Eating Disorders, Freeform, Lowercase, Short Drabble, Vomiting, again kei?? really? yes, author projecting onto nct, i have a lot of regrets, i think i mentioned noodles 20 times, i'm depressed, just venting, no beta reading
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-23 05:23:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20237440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renhyuckmin/pseuds/renhyuckmin
Summary: none of them would know because he was still healthy, he still looked healthy. so, of course, no one would ever suspect a thing.





	baths, drains and fingernails

**Author's Note:**

> yeah uh this was written in 10 minutes after i had. a relapse. so don't expect anything :^)

noise. the room was filled with nothing but noise, echoing off the tiled walls and floor alike and endlessly swarming the room. no end to the constant ringing that each and every echo left in his ears. the first was the shower running, endless drops of water hitting the bathtub below and spilling into the drain without real usage. though he had made sure to keep the tap turned cold, not to waste any more resources than he was already doing, it felt wasteful. as if letting the shower run beside him was the worst sin one could commit. the second noise was the music blaring, phone blasting songs that chenle had never even heard in his life but he needed  _ something _ to numb his own sounds. not that anyone would hear him, no one would, that was the upside of living alone. the knowledge no one was going to question him even if they did hear anything. yet he still put up this noise front, the plethora of echoes that made his ears ring and reverberate each and every one of them. surely, it hurt. with each minute passing everything hurt, but he  _ needed _ it, he needed the distraction. to act as if nothing could hurt him.

because chenle didn’t want to hear himself. he hated how disgusting his voice sounded when he kneeled on the bathroom floor, knees bruised from how often he made the run, yet not supplied with any bandages or band-aids to lessen the pain. no matter how horrible it hurt he would continue doing it, he’d continue scraping his knees on the tiled floor multiple times a day. it was a terrifyingly addictive routine, lifting up the toilet seat and sighing as he clipped bobby pins into his hair to keep the dyed strands from falling into his face when he bent over the bowl. another day that would end just like the last. another evening spent with his fingers reaching for the deepest cavity in his throat, moving once in a while to trigger a response. not that it was hard, retching never taking more than a second for his stomach to spit out a whole bunch of noodles he’d eaten just a few minutes beforehand. chenle probably lived off those now, anytime someone asked it was noodles, ramen, any meal that would be easier to purge later. because it was routine. just something that came  _ naturally _ , like to some people it came natural to clean the dishes after dinner, for chenle it was this. 

it stung like hell. acid following the cheap ramen that shot into the bowl with a ‘plop’ sound and making him gasp for air, fingers quickly moving to the toilet paper roll to wipe themselves off as he coughed. wiping off the soy sauce that clung to them as if he wasn’t moving them back inside his mouth as soon as the coughing stopped, a neverending attempt to rid his digestive system of each and every single noodle that had made its way down. an attempt that always ruined him, whether successful or not. the pain wasn’t worth it. nothing was worth the strain that vomiting put on his eyes, the pressure causing tears to streak down his cheeks and join his meal in the porcelain below. but he still did it. every day, sometimes he skipped a day, but all that did was making him feel worse than before. like a singular meal would ruin his entire progress, ruin everything he worked hard for. reality was that he was ruining himself, even as the food stopped coming up and he wiped his mouth on another piece of toilet paper, he knew he was completely and utterly destroying himself. the way his throat pained for hours afterwards, his voice faltering once in a while from all the self-induced vomiting he had done that week and him having to find excuses for losing strength in his voice. he wondered if one day it would destroy his career, if one day he would lose the ability to sing with his friends. but that was a constant worry, overshadowed by all the thoughts and voices that yelled, screamed, urged him to eat another serving of ramen for dinner and immediately throw it back up. 

sometimes he genuinely wondered if anyone caught onto him yet. if at least jisung had noticed his puffy cheeks when they met up the morning after. if anyone noticed his weight slowly but surely dropping, if they noticed the reasons for his voice dying during recordings. they probably didn’t. none of them would  _ know _ because he was still healthy, he still looked healthy. so, of course, no one would ever suspect a thing. not that he  _ wanted _ them to, chenle was just sure them caring would maybe, in some way, be able to help him open up. or it would intensify his issues. he hadn’t had the time to wonder which of the two it would be. the only thing giving him away were the scabs on his knuckles, as well as his knees, but he was sure if they asked he could chalk it up to practice or being clumsy. when he googled what could make other notice fingernails would come up a lot, but since all of them had short nails anyways he never worried about that. maybe someone would catch on though. maybe someone would notice. just not now.

_ maybe one day _ , he’d think. hands pressing on the edge of his toilet bowl as he got up and flushed whatever he had eaten that day down the sewage pipes. fingers smelling of everything they’d gotten in contact with, but chenle not caring enough to scrub the smell off entirely. he lived alone anyways, what was the point if no one else was bothered by it. all he did was wash his hands off with fresh tap water, head complaining about all the pains it went through. the music vanishing into the background as his mind concentrated on every of his other pains. on the tears drying on his cheeks, the fluids running down his nose, the burn in the back of his throat. he focused on all of that until the noises ran quiet, hand pressing down on the shower’s tap while the other pressed the pause button on his phone. and with a few, weakened steps, the light turned off as the door shut behind him. his routine completing once again.


End file.
